Families across the world anxiously sought news of loved ones yesterday after a tsunami crashed into the beaches and bars of some of Asia’s most popular resorts, killing thousands of people and leaving hundreds of thousands stranded. Information was scarce on the fate of tens of thousands of holidaying foreigners caught by walls of water that swept across the Indian Ocean, slamming into coastal areas of Thailand, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, India and the Maldives, killing more than 20,000 people. “My sister and her husband are in the Maldives. We are all so worried. Let us all pray that God is watching over all those involved,” Nikkie Robinson, of Dover, in England, told Sky News.

Calls from worried relatives swamped telephone hotlines set up by foreign ministries and tour operators. Damaged and clogged phone lines hampered communications. Television pictures showed terrified people taking refuge on rooftops as cars and other debris were swept along streets by the force of the water. Sri Lankan authorities said rescue workers had found the bodies of 22 people believed to be Japanese on safari at Yala national park. Japanese officials had little information.

“I was sitting on the first floor of a bar, not far from the beach, watching cricket,” said Australian tourist, Stephen Dicks, 42, visiting Phuket, Thailand. “And suddenly all these people came screaming from the beach. I looked around and saw a massive wall of water rushing down the street. It completed wiped out the ground floor of my bar, and thank God I was upstairs.” Thai disaster officials said it was not known how many of the 392 known victims there were tourists but one health official said 80 percent of those killed were foreigners. British travel agents said charter flights that had been due to carry more holidaymakers to devastated areas would instead fly out empty to evacuate survivors.

<B>Children terrified </B>

Japanese television showed injured survivors in Phuket, one of Asia’s premier beach resorts, which was packed with foreigners enjoying year-end holidays. “I got caught up in the wave and ran for my life,” one Japanese tourist told Japan’s Fuji TV, blood visible on his legs. “I tried to run, but my children were so scared they couldn’t move. I couldn’t get away,” another man told the station. Lothar Boese, a German jewellery shop owner in Phuket, was surveying his gutted shop. His goods had been swept away, leaving a covering of mud on the floor.

“I am devastated by what has happened. I have never seen anything like this before. We lost everything,” Boese said. In Japan, government agencies and organisations issued differing figures on missing nationals. The Foreign Ministry said it was checking the whereabouts of about 40 Japanese missing in the region, including a Thai-based diplomat and his elementary school-aged son, NHK public television reported. Japanese travel agencies said they were trying to contact 177 of their customers travelling in South and Southeast Asia.

<B> Worldwide concern</B>

A South Korean travel agency said nine people it had sent to Koh Phi Phi, an island in southern Thailand, were unaccounted for. “We are being flooded with calls from families who have not heard from them,” said Kim Jin-kook, head of public relations for Hana Tours. The tsunami killed two US citizens in Sri Lanka and one in Thailand, State Department spokesman Noel Clay said. Belgian foreign ministry spokesman Francois Dumont said two Belgians were killed in Phuket and 17 were reported missing. Belgian media said the dead were a 60-year-old woman and a baby.

Two Danes, two Swedes and one New Zealander were also killed, officials said. Six Australians were missing, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told reporters. The BBC quoted the British ambassador to Thailand, David Fall, as saying one Briton has died in Thailand. Italian Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini told reporters in Rome several Italian tourists were missing and some were injured.

<B>Information scarce </B>

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said diplomats were doing all they could to assist but communications had been disrupted. “For all the huge advances in the control of our lives through science and technology, an earthquake on this scale is truly humbling as well as profoundly tragic for everyone involved,” Straw said in a statement. France and Japan said they would send emergency medical teams and equipment to Sri Lanka yesterday. Foreign ministries of several countries said diplomats were speeding from Bangkok to Phuket in the hope of gathering information and assisting tourists there

<B>Isabel Reynolds</B>